Wings of Creation

by Brenda Cooper

  She dropped her head, not even bothering with preambles anymore.

  I was already there, waiting for her, linked well enough to the streams of ship’s data that I simply breathed information. Kayleen caught up to me, suffering as I drilled her on ship speed and gravity, on water supplies and nearby stars. Creator was fast—just under lightspeed—so our place in the starscape changed regularly. Marcus had taught me that even though Creator did the daily course charts, a real pilot would know these things. If nothing else, it kept me linked to the physical world.

  Pilots went crazy even more often than other Wind Readers. Kayleen knew.

  “Are you ready?” I asked her.

  Agreement. Something I felt as much as saw.

  We matched our breath. I led, slowing her, slowing us both. She did this part easily now. It made me think of Marcus, who had taught me to match breath with him. Much like I was teaching Kayleen now.

  She and I folded our virtual selves nearly inside of each other, and plunged into the ship’s library. I began to bombard her with questions.

  “What’s an affinity group?”

  She twisted her hands absently in her hair, a habit from early childhood that she’d never lost, and which she did now even while in a near-trance. “A family of economic and other interest.”

  “What is the Port Authority?”

  “A power that hates you.” That came from her conscious self, not the data. I waited for her to get it right. “Regulator of space travel and thus commerce for Silver’s Home.”

  “What are the Makers?”

  Her answers came fast. She hated this. I knew because the way we saw each other, raw and unfiltered, inside the data meant we were, in some ways, naked to each other. At least her fists weren’t clenched today. “A term loosely applied to Wind Readers who create new living things. Also means the affinity group that created the Silver Eyes, the island chain that you left from.”

  And where we were returning to. “What is Lopali?”

  “Home of the fliers.”

  “What are the fliers?”

  “Humans who can fly.”

  “What are the swimmers?”

  “Humans who live under the sea. There are not many of them.”

  “How many?”

  A long silence fell. Some of the other questions she’d answered before, but every day I asked some new ones, probed deeper. She’d have to figure out how to find this number. So much time passed that I worried she’d become lost. Eventually, she said, “When Creator left, there were fifty-two, but three were starting the de-sculpting and won’t count.”

  Very good. I had the strength to open my eyes and watch her, even though she was so disconnected from her body that if she felt her heart beat, she’d probably drop most of the data threads she held now. The cadence of her answers and the breaks between words made clues, but it was even easier to see the autonomic responses as emotions flitted across her face. The small muscles in her jaw and neck tightened, relaxed, tightened, even as her answers remained perfect. But I couldn’t make this easy for her, I owed her better than that. “Where is Caro right now?”

  I wanted to scream triumph when she didn’t skip a beat. “In the nursery with Liam.” That meant she went up to ship’s data from the library seamlessly. Harder than it sounded. And her hand hadn’t even twitched.

  “What is the condition of the carrots in the garden?”

  Hesitation. “We can harvest a few more this evening.”

  Good. “What is the best school for Wind Readers on Silver’s Home?”

  She’d need to go back into the library. I waited.

  She didn’t quite make it, her hand pulling away from mine, her presence gone from the nets. I caught her as she jerked up and back, so her head nestled against my arm, the long fall of her hair nearly brushing the ground. A light breeze from the air recirculation systems blew the loosest strands lightly, as if a true wind touched her, and her jaw quivered and tightened before she snapped her eyes open and sat up. “It’s always so hard to be back.” She lifted her hands and clenched and unclenched her fists, then stood and shook her oversized feet. “I forget I have a body at all.”

  At least she wasn’t mad at me. Three days ago she’d emerged screaming that I was too hard on her. I wasn’t. She had always been more fragile than I was. I had needed to hide for months on Silver’s Home, adapting and learning, lest the flood of data leave me a trembling idiot. After Kayleen had trouble in a place as simple as Fremont, it was all the more important for me to drive her hard. I was being far kinder than the impartial data streams of a full economy. They would not care about her.

  An alarm went off, and the data that I still breathed like air thrummed with warning so sharp my fingers jerked involuntarily and my spine stiffened.

  Something man-made approached us.

  2

  JOSEPH: MESSAGES

  Kayleen, too, heard Creator’s message about an intruder. Her eyes widened and the little-girl-lost look fled as she focused in on the implications. “What’s out here in the middle of nowhere?”

  I shivered, but kept my voice calm. “Not an asteroid or space junk—Creator treats those differently. Besides, you’re right, we aren’t near anything.” I triggered the all hands to command bell, praying everyone remembered the high sound from the drills in the days after we left.

  Alicia came first. She walked straight toward me and planted a proprietary kiss on my forehead before she waved at Kayleen. She might have been a twin of Kayleen’s, except her eyes were a shocking violet and she always appeared more sure of herself. She took the seat on the other side of me, scooting it closer so she could put a hand on my knee. “What is it?”

  “Creator sees something.”

  She glanced at the empty walls. “Any ideas?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know what it looks like?” she asked, her voice cool and calm. The salty-sweat smell of her told me she must have been working out when I called. “Or where it’s from?” Because I knew her base nature as our risk-taker, I understood how excited she really was, even though she only showed it with a flicker in her eyes and, every once in a while, a little lick of her tongue. She was probably hoping for something dangerous.

  “Creator promised to send pictures.”

  She glanced at the still-empty wall. “Soon, I hope. What do you know?”

  Chelo and Liam joined us, full of noise and questions, toys and blankets. The toddlers swarmed around their feet, still clutching the aircars. As if Creator had been waiting for all hands, the walls around the square room lit with pictures.

  A metal cylinder hung in the air. Man-made. Beautiful, but it made me shiver. It was impossible to tell the size from the picture. “How far away is it?” I asked.

  Creator answered in my head. “Ten kilometers.”

  Wow. Close, in space. Too close, really. Something was really wrong, and finally it slipped into my thick head. It should have been past us and gone. I closed my eyes and focused down on the data feeds. The object tracked us, matching our speed. That was the only possible explanation for it not being far behind us by now. I could get the size, too—about as big as a real version of the aircars Jherrel and Caro still clutched to them. Tiny for this far out. I told the group what I’d learned.

  “So where did it come from if it’s that small?” Liam asked.

  Alicia looked over her shoulder, checking all the wall-screens. “Is there another ship around?”

  “No.” I wished Jenna or Dianne or one of the other, older, people was awake. But there was no time to thaw anyone.

  This was mine. Mine and Creator’s.

  My breath came fast in my chest, and I clenched Alicia’s hand so hard she leaned over and whispered, “Relax. Trust yourself. You’re the best.”

  I waited for Creator to identify the object. We were only one year into an almost two-year trip, so it wasn’t something random from one of the Five Worlds. Inter-system space is too vast for random encounters. �
�It’s looking for us.”

  “Correction,” Alicia said. “It’s found us.” Her nails raked my thigh and Caro squealed and pointed as it grew bigger in the screens. Surely a trick of the cameras. It looked new, barely blemished by flight. “The Port Authority?” Alicia asked. “Could they find us?”

  “Maybe. But why? I’m going to them, after all.” I thought about other options. “The Dawnforce isn’t much faster than Creator. The mercenaries can’t have gotten home yet.” Besides, Creator was alert, not alarmed. Not that it had feelings; but it had responses. We weren’t being ordered to strap down and the weapons systems weren’t doing more than warming up.

  Chelo tucked Caro under her arm and grabbed Jherrel with her free hand and took them both into the adjoining galley, murmuring something about snacks.

  Liam tensed. “Could the mercenaries have sent a message?”

  I glanced at Kayleen. “You were in their nets more than I was.”

  “They spent a long time between attacks waiting for answers from home.” She closed her eyes and furrowed her brow. “No, it can’t be them. Not unless it’s been waiting for us since before they left Fremont.”

  “Creator?” I asked, signaling I wanted a verbal exchange for the benefit of the others. “Is it communicating with you?”

  “It’s silent,” the ship answered, its voice silky and genderless.

  “Can you tell where it’s from?”

  “My owner.”

  Marcus! Worry turned to excitement.

  Alicia’s hand relaxed on my leg, but she didn’t take her eyes from the picture floating in front of us. “So send it our identification.”

  “I have been.”

  Maybe it wanted me. “Is there any kind of data link?”

  “Not an open one.”

  A puzzle. Marcus’s own ship didn’t have access to his probe? Did he need to know it was me somehow?

  Jherrel, escaped from the galley, flew his aircar into my knee, and then stopped and grinned at me. I waved him away and his little face fell so hard I picked him up and looked him in the eye. “I have to figure something out. And I think I have to be quiet to do it. Can you and Caro and your dad,” I glanced at Liam and waited for his nod, “go and draw that ship so we have a record of it?”

  Even though he was only a little over a year old, Jherrel nodded seriously. “Yes, Uncle.” Smart kid.

  Liam scooped them both, and I leaned over and kissed Alicia on the cheek. “Can you help him?”

  Alicia tensed, still staring at the wall. “If it was meant to hurt us, it would have by now.”

  She drummed her fingers on my knee.

  “Please?”

  She raised an eyebrow, “Well, Liam is rather cute.”

  Damn her for making nothing easy. Unless it was a joke, and I could never tell with her. She didn’t like being cooped up in a tin can with no easy risks to take, no long runs, no cliffs to climb. I put my hand over hers and whispered, “I love you. I’d keep you here if I could.” We tried to keep one adult per kid.

  Alicia smiled and, as if she’d never fought the idea at all, she hopped up and balanced Caro on her fabulous hip and grinned at me, and then at Liam. She flipped on the mod she shared with Induan that made her basically reflect her surroundings, and it looked like the empty air was bouncing Caro up and down, only a periodic slight smear of shifting color giving away Alicia’s physical presence. “Call us when you know something,” she said as Caro left the room.

  “I will,” I said to the air.

  Chelo came over and stood behind me, massaging my shoulders, establishing the closeness we’d used ever since we were little. I had no words to tell her how steadying her presence was, how the feel of her fingers and her familiar scent helped center me.

  I stared at the image of the cylinder. There was no way to get to it physically. Not at this speed. Besides, to find us and match us like this, it had to be all engine and navigation and communications gear. It didn’t take much to maintain any speed you reached in space, but getting speed took lots of energy. This ship was too small to have the tools to return. What message was worth this expense?

  Another thought struck me, bringing with it a fear for Marcus. This had to have been sent shortly after we left. It took us two years to get to Fremont, we spent about two weeks there, and then almost another year getting this far back. It would have taken the little ship, or probe or whatever, over a year to get here and get aligned in our direction. A year and a half maybe—the sling out, the turn, the thrusting acceleration necessary. So he’d have sent it no more than a year and a half after we left, and probably sooner than that. I could see its likely trajectory in my head. And the timing—it had reached us before we burned the fuel to start slowing down.

  What did that mean was happening at home? Had the rumored war started?

  Worrying wouldn’t make answers.

  “Kayleen, can you watch over me, stay linked to Creator in case I’m . . . gone? Tell the others what’s happening?”

  “What do you mean, in case you’re gone? Surely you won’t go far enough I can’t reach you. Besides, I can’t fly Creator yet. I don’t know when I’ll be good enough to fly. Should I use the PA system or call them if something happens?”

  If I hadn’t felt that way myself, I’d have laughed at her nervous rambling. I put up a hand to forestall her usual thousand questions. “Just trust yourself.”

  There was a moment of silence, and I wondered what Chelo thought. She’d never been in space before. I touched her hand with mine, noticing that she trembled slightly. “It will be all right. Marcus is a friend.”

  “Go,” she whispered.

  I shifted in the chair, looking for a position where I didn’t feel the edges of it. Eyes closed, I clenched and opened my hands, stretched my ankles. What kept me from just knowing what to do?

  I talked myself through it. Open. Be the data. Be the maker. Be my blood, the gift of my genetics and the nano that swims in me. To fly the ship I didn’t need to be it, just to feel it in me. The last time I’d let myself be as open as I was trying for this time, I lost control. I could say it was in the heat of battle, except I was on a ridge far away from the skimmer and people inside when I threw them screaming in the sea. Their dying voices still echoed in my head. They hadn’t been trying to harm me. Not that moment. They were innocent. And dead.

  Chelo felt my tension, my distance, and worked my shoulders harder. “Focus,” she demanded, her voice just louder than a whisper. “You can do it.”

  Don’t think about losing control. Know you can keep it. Fall deeper. Start someplace safe. Creator thrummed through me and in me, and me in it. Data in my blood and bones, until my awareness of the bones and ligaments and veins and cells that made me live began to fade into streams of information. Kayleen rode the same data, higher than me, not so absorbed in it. I felt her register my presence, wish me well. It helped.

  I let myself fill the ship, take the feeds from the cameras and sensors outside. I worked my way into the communication stream from Creator. At this speed, small packets. I tried sending my name.

  Nothing.

  Marcus’s name.

  Nothing.

  My father’s. Maybe Marcus was expecting him to be piloting instead of dead.

  Nothing.

  I curled back about and watched Creator ping the ship, which responded to every question with its speed and location.

  There had to be another thread. “Send it our speed and location,” I told Creator.

  This time it responded, but only with an opening . . . machine talk for the way Alicia could ask me a question with her eyes.

  If Marcus were me, what would he do?

  And then I got it. I sent it a challenge. Marcus constantly teased me for being too naïve. “Who are you and why are you in our space? Prove yourself!”

  A burst of data leapt across the void, flooding the Creator, captured by its sensors.

  “Let it in?” Creator queried.

 
Who else would have known where to find us? “Yes.”

  The data fl owed into the Creator. My instincts had better be right.

  After I made sure Creator accepted the data from the strange little message ship, I slid back up into the slower, normal world. Chelo had one hand and Kayleen the other, my hands cold in their warm ones. Their eyes held questions, but they waited, letting me adjust. Creator still hummed inside me in all the usual ways, status and speed, atmosphere and temperature, all the little facts that keep a fragile cylinder safe inside emptiness. “Water,” I whispered, rewarded as Chelo slipped into the galley.

  Kayleen’s hand trembled slightly. “What did you see?” I asked her. “What data came in?”

  “It was too fast to read. Not meant for me anyway.”

  That made sense. Marcus had never met her, hardly knew she existed.

  Chelo came back in with water and I drank, feeling the water fill empty places deep inside me. “Creator? What did we get in? Is the message urgent?”

  “Yes.”

  Dumb question. I sounded the all hands bell again, and waited for the room to fill up before shifting us to the galley, which had a makeshift playpen for the kids across the back. I filled everyone in quickly while Kayleen served up col she flavored with redberries so that it smelled like Fremont.

  Finally, everyone sat looking at me with expectant faces. “Okay, Creator, what’s the message?”

  Even the children quieted as the screen showed Marcus seated in his garden. I recognized the light-link butterflies caught like prisms in the purple flowers behind his head. The video was just a frozen image at first, giving me long enough to drink in the sight of him. My savior, my teacher, the man who bankrolled my trip to save my sister. As always, he looked like power. Sunlight poured down on his brown hair, touching the ends with red almost as deep as fire, a contrast to his green eyes.

  If only I could reach through the air and touch him.

  “He looks so young,” Chelo said. “Like he’s our age.”

  The slight condescending tone in Alicia’s voice made me squirm as she said, “They all do.”